


archangels don't have hearts, silly

by Iwritefanfictionnottragedies



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 13x21 coda, ANGST ANGST MOTHERFUCKERS, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Gore, Panic Attacks, Sobbing, Vomit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-03 22:03:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14578587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iwritefanfictionnottragedies/pseuds/Iwritefanfictionnottragedies
Summary: coda for 13x21, Gabriel cleans Sam up after he returns from the dead.





	archangels don't have hearts, silly

**Author's Note:**

> i didn't like the last episode. here's some angst tho  
> im super tired & depressed today. love y'all

_painpainpainlossregretpain_

“can’t be dead, no, he can’t be dead”

His nephew’s voice echoes his thoughts, thrumming through the tangled mess of emotions. Archangels shouldn’t be able to feel emotions, no,

but then again, he was always a bit different than the rest of his siblings.

Maybe that’s why Castiel and him got along so well, the two broken angels with emotions.

“bring him back? Why couldn’t you”

Gabriel’s mouth forms words that feel heavy on his tongue, regret thudding in his skull. His words are merely excuses to the boy, and he can’t stand to look at him much longer. So, he turns his head, a million apologies on the brink of his lips.

Cas’s face is contorted with grief, an evident look of his pain. Gabriel’s is blank, empty, no evidence of the emotion inside.

_painpainlossregretyou-should-have-done-something-could-have-done-something-painpainregretlosspain_

He digs a finger into his thumb, and tries to forget his thoughts and the ache, the horrible ache.

The chime of bells awakes him from his stupor of self-hatred, and he pushes himself up, curious to see what all the commotion was, and yet, there is Sam, stumbling through the camp. While his breath pattern was irregular and hitched, that didn’t matter because he was alive, alive, Sam was truly alive.

He wanted to surge forward, to make sure it was real, to make sure that Sam wasn’t just going to disappear, but he didn’t. Gabriel stayed rooted to his spot, shell-shocked. And that’s when _he_ stepped out of the shadows, with a cruel smirk on his face, and Gabriel let his eyes flicker back to Sam’s, who’s casted his eyes down at the ground in regret, and the world seems to shatter for hasty second before it returned to normality.

Lucifer uttered a soft “Hello, son,” to Jack, who studied him critically, eyes sweeping over the man, and then, tightly, he grit out “You are not my father, and never will be my father. Castiel is my father, not you.”

Lucifer’s eyes widened slightly, his anger simmering for a brief moment before it faded out and he pasted a false smile to his face. “I think you’re… confused.” He pursed his lips together, rocking back on his heels. “I think you should shut the hell up,” Mary spits out, rage dripping from her voice, and suddenly there’s yelling and punching and all Gabriel can do is stare at Sam, _Sam_ , who awkwardly stands in the middle of it all, covered in blood, blood, oh god _the blood_ -

blood pouring out his neck blood spilling out over his shirt but no-

no, the vampires wouldn’t let the blood spill out on Sam’s shirt, no, each drop was licked and smeared and-

and then he was gone

gone-gone-gone

_dead_

and suddenly Gabriel couldn’t breathe, the breath was caught in his chest, as if his heart stopped working. _But archangels don’t have hearts_ , he’s reminded, but now that doesn’t matter because right now he’s underwater and all the world is background noise-

and then he stumbles to Sam and pulls him out of the chaos and

and then he manages out “clean your wound up” and drags him to the medicine tent

it isn’t a tent, really, just a tarp over some trees and a couple blankets and chairs spread out with medicine supplies, but that will have to do for now

and _father almighty_ , why can’t he _breathe_?

“Gabriel.”

Sam’s hands, his hands grab onto the archangel and anchor him because “he was tilting over” and really? he had no idea, and he grab-grab-grabs Sam’s jacket, and pulls him in and buries his face in fabric and

_breathes_

“Sam,” he coughs out, and he thinks he’s crying because there’s tears beading up at the corners of his eyes but they won’t fall

and he grabs some water and tugs the hunter to the ground and takes a rag and wipes away all the blood-blood-blood

and he stitches up the cut and his hands don’t shake because he’s an archangel and his hands aren’t supposed to shake and

he falls into Sam’s arms again and breathes again and

relishes the realness of it, Sam’s not going away, no-no-no-no

and then he feels the tremble of the hunter and screw his not-breathing, he needs to take care of the hunter he needs to come up for air

no more underwater for him

and his head clears and his chest expands and falls, even though archangels don’t have hearts so they don’t breathe. and the world has noise again and his fingers have feeling again and everything hurts again

“Sammy, you okay?” Gabriel turned to the taller hunter, carding gentle fingers through the brunet’s locks. Sam simply presses closer, his body shaking and his fingers clutching at anything and everything, scrabbling at Gabriel’s jacket.

“Y’don’t have a heartbeat,” he mutters, voice muffled, and closes his eyes, listening to the nothing in Gabriel’s chest. “Archangels don’t have hearts, silly,” Gabriel explains, although if he did, he’d be sure it’d be aching.

They’re both so vulnerable, scared silly of the slightest things, and he knows that they’re going to forget about it later, they’re going to pretend it never happened later, but he holds Sam tighter anyway because, screw that, now is now and later is later…

“What’s wrong, Sammy?” Gabriel hums, listening to the soft puffs of breath from the hunter. “Lucifer,” Sam says, and that’s all he needs to hear to understand the pain and the hurt and the pure violation, but the hunter continues. “Lucifer, I can’t get him out of my head, he’s still there, he’s always there…”

“He brought me back, I wish I wasn’t back, I”

Sam turned away, choking on hot, thick, vomit, gasping over the ground. He heaved, fisting his hair with tears in his eyes, heaved until there was nothing left but bile, and yet he couldn’t stop, his throat urging out, out, make it all come out.

Gabriel yanked the hunter back into his arms, streaks of tears and vomit on his face. Sam wiped his face on his sleeve, coughing out one, soft, wet, “I’m scared,” his body trembling as every outer shell gave, nothing left but the simple, painful truth.

“Shhh, shhh,” Gabriel hushed, sitting there for what seemed hours on end as Sam clutched the archangel desperately, returning his breath to normal. At one point, he dumbly sat there, allowing Gabriel to yank off the dirty shirt to replace it with a clean one.

“Are you okay?”

The question seemed so simple, so naïve, yet had so much weight behind it.

“Sam, I haven’t been okay for a very long time, and I think that it’s going to take twice that time to be considered even remotely “okay”. And that’s normal, and I’ll be fine in the meantime.” Gabriel sighed, shrugging. Sam gave him a soft nod of understanding, and struggled to his feet.

“I better… rejoin the others…” He mumbled. “But… um, thank you…” The archangel offered him a soft smile, and shooed him off.

Then, to himself, he whispered, “I think I might be falling in love with you, Sam Winchester. But that’s impossible, right? Because archangels aren’t supposed to have feelings. Because archangels don’t have hearts.”

And yet, there was an invisible flutter in his chest, right where his heart was.

Maybe he was just a bit broken in the right way.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> i cried while writing this wb y'all, what didja think?  
> commont & leve kudos


End file.
